Along with 11 others, these five stand a chance of winning the Teacher of the Year Award 2018 at the end of April. The University Fund Wageningen (UFW) published the longlist on Tuesday. Van der Honing teaches in Plant Sciences, De Zwart in Social Sciences. De Boer and Gussekloo are both associate professors, in Environmental Sciences and Animal Sciences respectively. Sonja Isken is programme director for the Food Microbiology degree programme.

True to tradition, there are plenty of ex-winners and previous nominees on the longlist this year. Apart from the five newcomers, everyone on the list has been nominated at least once before. All the nominees in alphabetical order: John Beijer, Fred de Boer, Henry van den Brand, Frits Claassen, Julia Diederen, Jessica Duncan, Maria Forlenza, Sander Gussekloo, Hannie van der Honing, Sonja Isken, Gert Peek, Arjen Rinzema, Ute Sass-Klaassen, Huub Savelkoul, Arie Terlouw and Pim de Zwart.

The student jury of the Teacher of the Year Award 2018 will announce the five teachers on the shortlist at the beginning of April.